Les nouveaux villages

Lauren McMullen

12:01AM BST 29 May 2007

The style and convenience of Côte D'Azur resorts are coming to rural France. Lauren McMullen reports

"Lock up and leave" has never been synonymous with French rural property. "Lock up and pray" would be nearer the mark - pray that you don't come back next spring to find that torrential rain has washed away the stone wall of your ancient farmhouse, the mice have chewed through the phone line and hornets invaded your roof.

There are many people who love France but are nervous of the epic renovation involved in rescuing a wreck, especially if they don't speak good French. Until now, British buyers wanting the easier option of holiday homes in fully serviced leisure resorts, with golf on the doorstep, have kept driving on by to Spain and the cranes of the costas. There were very few quality new-build resorts in France.

Not any more. When a Canadian leisure developer, with a track record that includes Whistler in Canada and the award-winning Arc 1950 Le Village in the Alps, chooses rural south west France for its first "warm weather" project in Europe, it tells you something is changing. Intrawest spent 12 months scouring the Costa del Sol and couldn't find a site that met its criteria. Instead, it picked St Emilion, near Bordeaux, in France's most prestigious wine-growing region.

Domaine Haut-Gardegan will be a new French village; a facility for stylish "cultural tourism". This 106-hectare vineyard site has been two years in the planning and according to Robert Jérôme, senior vice-president Europe for Intrawest, will respect the architectural language of the region. Just 15 minutes from St Emilion's medieval centre, a Unesco World Heritage site, the new village is wrapped around old buildings. The castle, the stables and the ancient trees have all been incorporated with care.

"We are here to blend in," he says. The romantic ruins will form the centre of the village, with a bakery, local market, shops, cafes and a school of cookery. There will be a resort-style hotel of 90 units and a total of 425 homes, which he says will be "very low density, respecting the ambiance and nature of rural France". There will be the obligatory 18-hole golf course designed by last year's US Ryder Cup team captain, Tom Lehman. However, Jérôme insists that it is an accessory, and not the point of the scheme.

It seems that the Bordeaux region - in spite of floating on a lake of claret and boasting some of the most famous vineyards in the world - is short of good hotels, conference and tourist accommodation and golf. Local planners have welcomed the Intrawest (www.intrawest-europe.com; 00 800 0800 2020) project. Prices will be slightly above the norm for the region, starting at €300,000 (£203,000) plus VAT, because there will be a lot of services. Advance reservations start early next month and the development will be completed in 2009. About 90 per cent will be sold on the well-established French leaseback system with guaranteed rental income. This saves the 19.6 per cent TVA, the equivalent to VAT, charged on new homes. As very few owners spend more than a few weeks a year in their holiday homes, it makes sense.

Martha Saavedra, who has been working for The Property Finders in the South of France since 2003, says that buying off-plan in France is not as alien as it was 10 years ago and that there has been a steady growth in the market. "New-build is more and more popular and convenient and fees are only 2.5 per cent compared with 6 per cent for traditional properties," she says. "New apartments with balconies are the most sought after." Properties with sporting facilities, such as golf and tennis are also popular, such as the Provencal resort, Les Domaines de Saint Endreol, near Nice, with two-bedroom houses from £274,000 (Savills 020 7016 3740).

Buyers, on the whole, receive a 10-year building maintenance guarantee. "People are realising that it is not always a good deal to buy a property that needs work, as they have to spend so much money doing it up."

She points to the widespread expectation that France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will lower inheritance tax (which currently runs at up to 60 per cent). "He wants to make it easier to buy property in France. There is nothing definite on tax, but we shall wait and see."

In the unspoiled départment of Lot, Le Vallon des Causses is being built by French developer Lagrange. This project is in the old region of Quercy, which became a "fief of the counts" of Toulouse in the ninth century and was savagely contested during the Hundred Years War. It is very rural, punctuated by hilltop medieval bastide villages. On market days, the stalls are piled high with local produce - cherries, peaches, asparagus, jambon de pays, wines and cheese.

The first of 111 one- to three-bedroom townhouses have gone on sale. There are nine stand-alone villas being sold by Erna Low Property (www.ernalow.co.uk; 020 7590 1624), which is fast building a business in warm-weather developments to balance its traditional interests in skiing.

What makes this project especially interesting is the new international airport of Brive-Souillac, 20 miles from the site. It's due to open next year but seems a well-kept secret, despite its strategic location at the crossroads of the A20 Paris Autoroute and the road linking Clermont-Ferrand with Bordeaux. It should have an upward impact on property prices in the area.

It's a world away from the early Nineties, when one of the first such projects - Pont Royal Country Club in Provence - had a difficult start. The developers, London & Metropolitan, had to hand over to Pierre et Vacances, one of Europe's leading resort developers. "They made a mistake in their target market, building big houses for rich buyers," says Antoine de Fombelle, chief executive of Pierre et Vacances, "and the property market in France at that time was impossible."

He says that the economics have changed totally and low cost flights have had a huge impact, creating new destinations. "More people want the three things that make resort projects a good choice - security, maintenance and revenue."

Graham Ball of Overseasproperties.com (00 33 489 089 100), a company which markets around 30 resort projects in France, agrees. While Provence is still the most developed destination, he sees a clear trend towards other areas, such as Languedoc-Roussillon. "The caravan parks are being pushed back from the coast as owners get permission for more upmarket resort development." He sees the opening up of Béziers airport and the fact that there are five regional routes from the UK to Carcassonne as key. "Leaseback is more popular than ever, because some of our projects are now offering up to 25 weeks occupation - the longest time you can be in France without becoming resident," he says.

He is selling Le Petit Lac, a residence of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with views over the Cannes Mandelieu Golf Course. It offers easy access to the traditional pleasures of the Riviera, including marinas, casinos and restaurants. With prices starting at €200,000, it's a low-cost route into an expensive playground and suits the growing number of Brits who are aiming to build up a property portfolio with income.

John Chauhan, a businessman from Solihull, is taking full advantage of this trend. He has two "lock up and leave" properties in France, one in Cannes and the other at Beausoleil, bought through Overseasproperties.com. Both are on lease-back for nine years and rented out on his behalf.

"I have road-tested the concept and I am contemplating a third property in Le Petit Lac. It has some very good facilities and it's probably fair to say that standards in leisure developments in France generally are rising.

"I love the country. My wife and I much prefer it to Spain," he says. "France is stylish; the food is good and the people are well-mannered and friendly".

They would both like to spend more time there. "This is a good way of easing your way into France, without major restoration and you can also build up a buy-to-let portfolio because the properties are reasonably priced," he says. "You can get substantial mortgages as income is assured and this means only a small deposit is required.

"When the leases are up, we plan to spend two to three months every year in Cannes. We love the fact that the rent is guaranteed over such a long term and paid into our bank every quarter while, at the same time, there are no worries about general property management, periodic renovation or refurbishment, finding tenants or any financial worries of void periods and letting fees. The rental company will even replace furniture and fittings when required, in order to maintain rental standards."

What about the golfers? Will they ever switch allegiance from Spain to France? Bruce Duncan, publisher of Golfing in Britain and Europe, has a surprise for them: "Spain has 144 18-hole golf courses; France has 533. It's a common fallacy - you think of Spain as the golf country, but France has over three times the courses."

He believes the course at Domaine Haut-Gardegan will be a roaring success, as there is not much competition in the immediate area.

New builds do not have to be ultra-modern - many of these projects take their style from the local architecture of the region, because buyers still want the French dream. However, they also want to "lock up and leave" the dream behind when work calls them back to reality.